Chicken and Bacon Salad

I am notoriously bad at eating salad. It's usually the first thing to go off in my fridge and I feel guilty as I get lettuce or salad packs in my box and they end up in the bin.

So today I decided to make a mixed salad to try and use up some of the salady bits. =)

Cooked chicken - (from a ready-to-eat packet)
bacon
mixed salad leaves
lettuce
tomatoes
closed cup mushrooms sliced
slices of parmesan
french dressing

Should have been ranch dressing really, I guess, but I didn't have any... and the low-fat french dressing is probably a bit healthier.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Pasta - two ways

I love PSB it's one of my favourites... and when it comes in my box, I always get a LOT of it. Cooking for just me means that it can easily stretch 3 or 4 meals and I hate eating the same thing all the time, so here are two entirely different ways of having PSB and pasta. =)

PSB with pasta in basil and garlic

- cooked pasta
- Purple Sprouting Broccoli - I tend to keep the florets and the leafs and discard most of the stalk because I prefer cooking it very briefly.
- garlic - I used a LOT because I was trying to see off a cold and it ended up a bit strong
- fresh chives
- fresh basil
- parmesan cheese
- olive oil
- lemon juice
- fresh ground pepper and salt

This is, essentially, a quick version of pesto without the nuts. I took a large handful of fresh basil, a handful of fresh chives, a few garlic cloves, a dribble of olive oil and a dribble of lemon juice, pepper and salt, shoved it all into a pestle and mortar and beat it into a paste. Great stress relief.

I gently stir fried the broccoli in a little water until the florets start losing their purple colour, then added the paste, cooked for a short while, mixed with the pasta and served.

This tasted very fresh and healthy, the garlic was pretty strong but that's what I wanted. Yummy!

PSB with pasta in a cheese and bacon sauce

- cooked macaroni
- PSB - again florets and leafs
- garlic
- fresh chives
- fresh tomatoes
- smoked bacon
- red Leicester cheese
- parmesan cheese
- plain flour
- butter
- milk

Often, to save washing up, I cook things in shifts using the same pan, but if you want you could cook all this simultaneously and end up with multiple dirty pans.

First I fried the bacon, then removed from the pan and set aside, wiped the bacon fat out of the pan.

Then I chopped the tomatoes into eighths, roughly chopped the chives and the garlic and put all this and the PSB into the pan with a little water and stir fried until the tomatoes were soft and the PSB green. Then I set this aside too.

In the same pan I melted a large knob of butter, then stirred in a heaped tbsp of plain flour. Stirred this into a smooth paste and removed from the heat. Stirred in milk until I had a smooth single-cream consistency then put back onto a very low heat. I sprinkled in a large handful of grated red Leicester and a little amount of grated Parmesan and stirred in until it all melted and became smooth.

Finally I added in all of the bacon (chopped into strips), pasta and the veg mix and stirred thoroughly to mix.

Muuuch less healthy than yesterday, but very tasty and good comfort food!

Spaghetti Bolognaise (fortnight 1, day 1)

Well almost a whole year later I am back!

I was inspired by the blog NeverSeconds to start up my food blog again!

Today is box day, and I got:
large bunch of small carrots
celery
flat runner beans
swiss chard
cherry tomatoes
golden bosc pears
apricots

plus leftover mushrooms, courgette, red onions and a tiny bit of lettuce.

Today I am making Spaghetti Bolognaise!

Having said that, it's a loose resemblance, as you'll see. =)

Ingredients:

• Lean minced beef
• tin tomatoes

• red onion
• runner beans
• courgette
• carrots
• mushrooms
• celery

• garlic
• mixed herbs
• oxo cube
• Worcestershire sauce
• tomato puree
• red wine (I think it was a Shiraz)

• dried spaghetti
• Parmesan cheese freshly grated

Chop all the veg. I always end up eating a few runner beans raw as I go along because they are so tasty! I tend to chop my veg very chunky partly because I'm too lazy to do it finely and partly because I like the texture when I'm eating it.

The carrots that I got in the box were very small ones so I just gave them a good wash instead of peeling.

I tend to use a wok to fry most things because the high sides are convenient. Firstly I cooked the celery, onion and garlic in a little olive oil. Then I transferred that to the main pot.

Fried the beef, drained off the water/fat liquid, crumbled an oxo cube directly to the meat and added the Worchestershire sauce, tomatoes, tomato puree and herbs and then transferred that to the main pot too.

Stir fried the rest of the veg very quickly and then added them to the main pot as well, along with the mushrooms raw and a good amount of red wine.  I don't drink wine at all, so I just buy the small bottles for cooking with.

Put the lid on and leave to simmer for a while, meanwhile get the pasta on to cook.

Serve with spaghetti and some grated (or dried) parmesan cheese. mmmmmmm tasty.

And unfortunately the pears aren't yet ripe, so I finished the meal off with a couple of apricots instead! =)

~ Hannah